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Back in October Google stock plummeted 9% when earnings estimates failed to meet Wall Street expectations. Google has made a habit of exceeding earnings expectations, so this failure was a big wake-up call. So what does this mean for you as an advertiser?

Now Is The Time To Try AdWords

Let me explain the history of AdWords coupons:

$100 of free clicks for new advertisers – These coupons were as ubiquitous as AOL CDs. However, not everything lasts forever.

$100 of free clicks AFTER spending $25 as a new advertiser – This change happened in September and is a great way for Google to squeeze an additional $25 out of anyone looking to get their free $100 of clicks.

Double matching on first $125 in AdWords Express – I did a write-up on PPC.org for this change, but this is an attempt to get new users into the dumbed down AdWords Express product.

$400 refund if you’re not happy – This is the newest approach which I’ll discuss fully below.

$400 Refund on AdWords

Background: I received this offer via a direct mail offer sent to my home address. The letter accompanying the offer indicates that it was sent to AdSense publishers who hadn’t tried AdWords yet. Below is the offer card:

Of course there is all the small print like “enter the code above in the billing tab of your account within 14 days. If you’re not satisfied, close your account within 60 days and you’ll get your money back.” That’s just the details, but I see a larger trend here.

Google REALLY, REALLY Needs New Advertisers

My reasoning is two-fold. First, the lower than expected Q3 revenues shows that Google isn’t growing as fast as they want to be, and more importantly, not as fast as Wall Street has grown to expect. For a publicly traded stock this is a very big deal. Second, the frequency and variety of offers I’ve received demonstrates that Google is putting serious effort into new advertiser acquisition. Some offers are co-marketing efforts with hosting companies. Some offers are going to AdSense customers with not AdWords account (ie this new one). They ran a holiday promotion through Google Engage (their agency-focused department) offering prizes to agencies that could sign up new customers and reach certain spend levels before the beginning of the year.

So, if you’ve been considering AdWords, now is a great time to start because Google is dangling lots of carrots. Oh, and if you need one of those vouchers (and some help using it wisely), give Trafficado a shout through the contact form. We can probably find one laying around.

While these updates are painful to new SMBs, they are also going after the SEO industry to push them towards paid placement. They are also directly competing with successful industries by delivering their content on the Google domain.

My concern is what steps Google will take to continue to turn a profit 3-5 years out. They have already abandoned their initial position of organizing the worlds information and are in a position to wreak havoc to millions of users with additional paywalls and curated services.